Only Ashes That Remain
by AbraFilo
Summary: For Snape's Birthday. Petunia wakes up to find baby Harry is missing and soon learns that Vernon plans to leave Harry at a firestation. This situation becomes unimaginably worse when Petunia has to team up with Snape to get Harry back before the Ministry Of Magic finds out that the Boy-Who-Lived is living elsewhere.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, I do not own any of the characters or locations, the events that take place are purely fictional and are not to be confused with the actual Harry Potter storyline.**

Her pillow hit its mark but failed to drive the damned alarm clock off the nightstand. Petunia didn't know how long it had been ringing but it was beginning to drive her mad, why wasn't it driving Vernon mad? If a mouse so much as farted in the neighbors basement Vernon could hear it and yet here she was at... she rolled to glare at the alarm clock... four in the bloody morning looking at an alarm clock because Vernon wasn't in bed to block her line of sight. It troubled Petunia a moment and her mind spun thinking what could be the cause of this when she was so rudely interrupted in her worry by the ringing again.

Petunia threw herself off her side of the bed stormed around to the nightstand grabbed the alarm clock and just pulled. In a mere instant it was disconnected from the wall and everything was quite. Tomorrow was Saturday anyway, no real need to get up early, though she would anyway. She wondered if Vernon had merely gone for a walk after the row they had earlier. She rubbed her eyes with the palms of her hand and made a mental note to make waffles for breakfast tomorrow to put them in better spirits when another ring shattered the peace and silence. It could only be the phone.

She bolted straight up and sat starring at it, horrified as though it was the first time she had ever realized it was there. It sat innocently beside the darkened alarm clock, in her mind, like a feral animal crouching in the darkness. What if Vernon was injured? In the hospital? The morgue? She felt hot tears in her eyes and a vice around her chest. Air could hardly fill her lungs and Petunia lost her grip on the phone no less than three times and snatched it back each time in a frantic desperation before pressing the receiver to her ear. By now the hot tears were streaming down her face and dripping from her chin, she was sniffling and gulping for air. News at this time was the only news she didn't want but she had to know.

"Hello" she sobbed in a mortified and almost whisper "who is this?"

"Do you know where your husband and nephew are?" It didn't sound like a teenager, in fact it sounded like a rhetorical question implying she was stupid. Petunia was pissed.

"Who is this? How dare you phone me at this time of night! Who do you think you are?" She was on her feet pacing back and forth frantically as far as the cord would allow her. She faintly heard the babies crying but railed on determined that this pervert would not call her again. "If you so much as dare phone me back I will report you to the police and lay charges! They will find you and I will make sure jail time is a necessity!".

Satisfied she slammed the phone back into the receiver and smiled. She could tell Vernon all about it when he was home, he very much enjoyed hearing of delinquents put in their place. With a newfound spring in her step and brushing the tears from the eyes Petunia went to comfort Dudley and Harry. Entering the room she turned on the light and rushed to Dudley's side. Scooping him out of the crib Petunia hugged him close and cooed in his ear all was well and mummy wasn't angry. She hesitantly set him back down and smoothed his beautiful blonde hair back from his eyes.

At only two years her baby boy was too heavy to hold and she desperately missed that. When the weight became too much and she had to put him down Petunia would console herself thinking what a handsome proper young man he would grow to be. Then when he was married someday she could hold her little grandchildren. Dudley smiled up at her and she leant down to kiss his forehead before laying him back and tucking him in. In a moment he was dreaming again. She swelled with pride and her eyes watered, such a well behaved little boy she thought with pride.

Now she just had to deal with her nephew. Not a pleasant task, he screamed day and night. Dudley had been a quieter baby she thought bitterly why couldn't this one be like that. The pacifier she stuck in his mouth earlier was likely the only thing preventing him screaming. Though if she dared leave without him falling back to sleep it would come right out and the little monster would howl bloody murder and wake the whole street. Petunia didn't know what she would do then because Vernon wasn't here to soothe Dudley.

Holding in a sigh, to keep Dudley peacefully sleeping, Petunia turned on her heel to attend Harry. The crib looked empty. Petunia knew there was no way he wasn't in there and quickly advanced on it and pulled the blanket back. Her nephew wasn't there. She looked under the crib and started digging through the toys as quickly and quietly as she could. It must have looked absurd, tiptoeing around and waving her arms to propel herself about faster. It must have looked like drunken ballet. She was already in tears looking for Harry and would positively scream if Vernon caught her searching like this.

This couldn't be happening twice in one bloody day. It was getting out of hand. Finally satisfied Harry wasn't in their room she silently tiptoed out and closed the door. Looking left to right she decided the washroom was the most dangerous place for him to be upstairs and was two steps in that direction when the phone rang. At that she did shriek, miraculously Dudley remained sleeping. Petunia ran into the master bedroom and pulled the phone out of the wall. The bright spark was almost enough to make her regret it but in that moment silence truly was golden, phone be damned. Until it rang again.

"Who are you!" she demanded. Petunia was actually frightened at the speed to which the phone was to her ear. More so than the fact it was physically impossible for it to be working right now.

"Would you like to know where your husband and nephew are?" the tone somehow managed to be snarky and smug all at once.

"Not without knowing how the bloody hell you know?" she whispered angrily into the mouthpiece. This was magic and now she was scared. She was scared something had happened to them, ransom demands would be sent and the neighbors would notice Vernon was gone. Maybe it wouldn't even take that long. Maybe they noticed the lights on and were cracking open the windows to listen behind their darkened blinds.

"I watched them leave before calling, as there was no lights left on I correctly assumed you weren't in on it".

"In on what?" she whispered. That tone was becoming familiar.

"I believe your husband is abandoning him at a fire station four towns from here".

"How could you possibly know that?" Petunia demanded. She knew so many people and couldn't place the voice.

"I watched him leave the house and double check the map before driving away" It answered, every syllable dripping amusement. She knew who he was. The tone gave it away because the next question was obvious and she didn't want to hear the answer.

"Why did Vernon let you so close that you could read the map"? her breath stopped in her throat.

"How can you refuse someone that you cannot see"?

Petunia threw the phone into the wall where it actually stuck at a freakish angle mocking her betrayal and misery. Hot salty tears flowed from her eyes and Petunia began to actually sob. Vernon wasn't here and that horrible Snape boy had found her. Actually that Snape boy was here because Vernon had left her here and took their nephew. Why was this happening? Why wasn't he flying after her husband or floating the car back to the house? Why was he coming after her when she hadn't done anything?

A loud rap at the window cut her grief short, she was sorely tempted to ignore it away until she imagined he had grown a giant beanstalk one hundred feet into the air to climb three feet up and rap at her window. Petunia unsteadily got to her feet, leapt to the window and hastily pulled the blinds open. She saw nothing. The backyard was below her and empty. Just as some small bit of relief began to blossom another rapping startled her so bad she fell backwards and took the curtain off the wall, the rod and screws too.

Just as she landed Petunia threw her arms in front of her face but nothing collapsed onto her. When there wasn't even a clang she dropped her arms and looked up to find the whole mess of it hovering just inches off the wall. She yanked it all down to the floor in a more naturally acceptable heap and pulled herself up as another more insistent rap came from the window. Accompanied by the voice she had finally remembered the face to.

"Open the window, so we can speak without me needing to charm my voice through".

"You're not coming in" she warned before pulling open the window.

"That's fine, I'm not the one deconstructing my house one appliance and fixture at a time while aggressively threatening strange invisible entities in the night sky".

Now along with his ugly git face she remembered why she hated the smug bastard. Petunia wasn't letting this escalate any further and quickly stepped aside making room for him to jump through without barreling her over.

"Get in quietly and instantly and touch nothing" she hissed already feeling she had unfairly been forced to choose the lesser of two evils.

The unseen figure obliged, she could feel the slight change in breeze as something unseen entered the room. As the cloak came off she was caught off guard, she hadn't heard him land but that wasn't all. A lot had changed, he certainly wasn't the little fourteen year old pain in the ass she remembered. Petunia noticed immediately that he was at least a few inches taller than her now. He wore clothing that properly fit and revealed that he was indeed, in her opinion, ridiculously skinny. The most striking thing she noticed though was his demenour, he didn't slouch and glare, he held himself up with a proper posture and stared coolly at her. For the first time he was waiting for her to speak.

"So my husband takes off with our nephew and your best idea is to terrorize me" she said indignantly. This whole situation made little sense to Petunia and she became even more irate when she noticed his lips curling into a smile. "Why don't you sod off and bother my husband, he's the one taking off with the child"?

"Do you really think I am going to convince your husband to turn around and drive him back without some use of force or intimidation"?

She wasn't certain if he was waiting for an answer or not but she did not want him anywhere near their brand new car.

"I thought not" he answered, a satisfied look on his face "Get dressed, I would suggest pants and a jumper it will be fairly cold".

"Wait!" Petunia ordered before he reached the door. As he inclined his head she noticed a broom handle mostly concealed by his robes. Understanding gripped her and she knew fear as she had never known it. "No it is not happening not a chance in bloody hell" she scream whispered even in hysterical panic she was aware the neighbors may hear and she wasn't going to let happen. "I would sooner walk naked to work in broad daylight during the new years parade than get on that FREAKISH device!" she spat out.

None of this seemed to affect him in any sense, his face stayed in an expression of grim amusement it entirely unnerved her as she could remember, quite smugly, less provocation sting and anger him. He had dropped a tree branch on her head for calling him poor and she had just insulted his very existence without him blowing her up, or whatever they did. What the hell was going on? Petunia hated herself for the tears trickling from her eyes yet again and was so startled she jumped when he strode back to stare down at her. It wasn't an intimidating gesture and his tone was detached. It was in what he said that the threat lay and she could feel her eyes widening as he spoke.

"Okay, if you want me to go I will. Just don't tell Dumbledore I was here. Especially not in front of the Minister of Magic and his bodyguards, as you see, he is our equivilant to your Prime Minister. Then after he shows up all the representatives of the offices and perhaps a few apprentices that will need to show up for such a complex matter. You are going to have a very long night Petunia" he said smirking down at her "But you can make it insignificantly shorter if you don't mention I was here".


End file.
